People v. Noujaim
| Decision Date | 15 June 2022 |
| Docket Number | E076514 |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. RUBEN G. NOUJAIM, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County Super. Ct. No RIF2001208 Louis R. Hanoian, Judge. ) Reversed with directions.
James M. Kehoe, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland and James H. Flaherty III, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
On September 10, 2019, a vehicle driven by defendant Ruben G Noujaim struck and killed a pedestrian. A blood test revealed Noujaim had recently used heroin. Less than seven months after the fatal collision, on April 7, 2020, Noujaim was stopped for driving erratically at unsafe speeds, running red lights, and making unsafe turns; a blood test again indicated recent heroin use. A jury convicted Noujaim of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated (Pen. Code, § 191.5 subd. (b); count 1) and driving under the influence of a drug causing injury (Veh. Code, § 23153, subd. (f); count 2) and found true a sentencing enhancement for great bodily injury (Pen. Code, §§ 12022.7, subd. (a) & 1192.7, subd. (c)(8)) based on the September 2019 collision. Noujaim pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of driving under the influence (DUI) of a drug (Veh. Code, § 23152, subd. (f); count 3) based on the April 2020 stop.
Noujaim challenges the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained through a warrantless blood draw. (Pen. Code, § 1538.5.) The trial court found exigent circumstances justified taking Noujaim's blood sample without a warrant. We disagree and reverse.
Because Noujaim challenges only the denial of the motion to suppress we do not recount in detail the evidence introduced at trial and instead focus on the facts presented at the hearing on the suppression motion.
Deputy Damian Chavez of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department was on duty as a motorcycle traffic officer on September 10, 2019, at 7:45 p.m. when he responded to a vehicle versus pedestrian collision near the intersection of Graham Street and Old Valley Road in Moreno Valley, arriving at 7:52-7:56 p.m. As he approached the scene, Chavez saw emergency medical personnel arriving and providing assistance to a person lying in the roadway, and a small crowd of people was gathering on the sidewalks. Chavez conferred with Deputy Aurelian Perde, who had arrived earlier, and they determined that Chavez would act as the primary deputy responsible for the investigation. Perde had already determined that Noujaim was driving the car that had struck the pedestrian, and he had located two possible witnesses. Perde interviewed the first witness while Chavez assigned other deputies to shut off traffic on both roadways and to secure the accident scene to prevent anyone from entering. Chavez then interviewed Noujaim, who was pacing, seemed to be crying, and was too distraught and emotional to speak. Chavez asked Noujaim to stay there and regain his composure while Chavez went to take a statement from another witness and deal with some bystanders who were asking questions. Meanwhile, other traffic bureau deputies and traffic supervisors had been called in to assist with the investigation, and it was Chavez's responsibility to keep them updated as the investigation progressed, to get reports from other officers assisting with the investigation, to delegate tasks to other deputies, and to manage bystanders who had gathered and occasionally interrupted the investigation. At its peak, the investigation required all available deputies to be on the scene participating until all necessary tasks had been assigned, which Chavez estimated occupied between 10 and 15 deputies in all, including community service officers who had been called in.
After the pedestrian was declared dead at the scene, Chavez returned to interview Noujaim. Noujaim had stopped crying, appeared more composed, and was able to provide information about what had happened. Chavez observed Noujaim's eyes were glossy and his pupils appeared constricted, indicating he might be under the influence, and Chavez proceeded to ask a series of pre-field-sobriety-test questions to investigate Noujaim's possible impairment. Noujaim reported that he was taking painkillers, both prescription and over-the-counter, and that he had suffered a head injury and partial blindness in his right eye from a previous car accident and assault. Chavez noticed inconsistencies in Noujaim's responses concerning the medications he had taken that day, so he decided to administer field sobriety tests. On the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, Chavez noticed that Noujaim's eyes were glossy and his pupils appeared to be "pinpoint." While Chavez was giving instructions for the walk-and-turn test, Noujaim became unstable and could not maintain his position without losing his balance, so Chavez discontinued that test. On the one-leg-stand test, Noujaim was unable to straighten his legs, put his leg down repeatedly, used his arms for balance, and was unable to lift his leg again without losing his balance, all of which indicated possible impairment to Chavez. Chavez noticed another inconsistency in Noujaim's statements: He claimed he was unable to complete the tests because he was in pain, but during the interview before the field sobriety tests, Noujaim had spontaneously told Chavez that he would be able to perform the tests because he was pain free today. At this point, Chavez formed an opinion that Noujaim may have been under the influence of painkillers and may have been impaired and unable to operate a motor vehicle safely, so he placed Noujaim under arrest.
Chavez estimated that he arrested Noujaim "somewhere around 9:00" p.m., which "had to have been well over an hour" after Chavez had arrived at the scene. A forensic nurse had already been called to the scene by another deputy around 8:30 or 8:40 p.m. in case Noujaim consented to provide a blood sample, and Chavez saw the blood nurse arrive at 9:07 p.m. Chavez asked Noujaim several times to provide a blood sample for testing, but Noujaim refused, asking instead that Chavez continue administering the field sobriety tests.
At 9:13 p.m., Deputy Kevin Seguin arrived at the scene. By that time, the number of deputies involved in the investigation had dwindled from its peak of 10-15. Because the investigation was still ongoing and Chavez was unable to transport Noujaim on his motorcycle, he told Seguin to transport Noujaim to the station, which was between five and 10 minutes away, and obtain a search warrant to conduct a blood draw.
Chavez testified that at the time of this collision, the Riverside County Sheriff had not yet implemented its new tablet computer system allowing deputies to apply for search warrants from the field, so deputies had to go to the station to use the computers, printers, and scanners to author a warrant application, print it, sign it, scan it, email it to a magistrate on call, then wait for a response, and follow up with a telephonic sworn oath. Accordingly, Chavez provided to Seguin all of the facts he had ascertained from his investigation establishing probable cause so Seguin could include that information in the search warrant application. Seguin then left to transport Noujaim to the station, and the blood nurse at the scene was also asked to proceed to the station.
Seguin testified that he was called in on his day off to assist with a fatal traffic collision investigation and arrived at the accident scene at 9:13 p.m. that day. There, Chavez informed him that Noujaim had been arrested, that Chavez believed Noujaim was impaired by drugs, and that Noujaim had declined consent for a blood test, and Chavez asked Seguin to transport Noujaim to the station and assist with obtaining a warrant and blood draw. While they were driving to the station, Noujaim asked Seguin what was going on. Seguin requested Noujaim's consent for a blood test, which Noujaim refused, so Seguin told Noujaim he would obtain a search warrant for the blood test. After arriving at the station around 9:30 p.m., Seguin saw that the phlebotomist was already there, and he again asked for Noujaim's consent for a blood test, which Noujaim refused. Seguin instructed the nurse to draw Noujaim's blood, which Seguin witnessed, and two samples were taken and marked to indicate they were drawn at 9:49 p.m. and 9:50 p.m.
When asked why he had ordered Noujaim's blood to be drawn without first obtaining a search warrant, Seguin explained that almost two hours had already elapsed since the collision, and in his experience, it takes roughly an additional hour to author a warrant application and get it approved. He explained that the more time that passes causes the substances in the blood to dissipate, that the need to preserve evidence after a fatality collision was great, and that sometimes securing an after-hours search warrant can take longer than one hour. Seguin testified that immediately after witnessing Noujaim's blood draws, he authored and submitted a warrant application, which was approved at 10:43 p.m.
On cross examination, defense counsel asked Seguin, "after Mr. Noujaim elected not to take a blood test, you thought about getting a search warrant, right?" He responded Seguin testified that it usually took him 20-30 minutes to draft...
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